Psyche, Science, and Society

NATO-led forces complicit in torture?

People detained in Afghanistan continue to face torture and other ill-treatment, in particular by the country’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

Amnesty International, the UN and others have consistently reported cases of torture and other ill-treatment. Yet members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) – particularly those from Belgium, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and Norway – have continued to hand detainees over to the NDS.

The abuses are taking place in the context of the ongoing conflict involving the Afghan government, international military forces, the Taleban and other armed groups.

Over the past two years, Amnesty International has received repeated reports of torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of the NDS, including detainees being whipped, exposed to extreme cold and deprived of food. Many of them have been arrested arbitrarily and detained incommunicado, without access to lawyers and families.

By transferring individuals to locations where they are at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment, ISAF states may be complicit in this treatment. They are also breaching their international legal obligations.

The report Detainees transferred to torture: ISAF complicity? highlights: cases including allegations of torture by Afghan authorities of transferred detainees; incidents where ISAF states have lost track of transferred detainees; the difficulties in independently monitoring detainees in Afghan custody and the practice of on-the-spot transfers without documentation.

Amnesty International is urging all ISAF states to suspend all transfers of detainees and hold them in their custody until effective safeguards are in place. Meanwhile, ISAF countries should promote the reform of the Afghan detention system, including by facilitating training of detention officials. The Afghan government must ensure the end of all practices of torture, other ill-treatment and arbitrary detention in the country.

PSYCHOLOGY, INTERROGATION & THE APA:

A CONVERSATION WITH
JEAN MARIA ARRIGO & NINA THOMAS

Section 9 of APA Division 39 [Psychoanalysts for Social Responsibility] is cosponsoring an informal panel with the NYU PostDoctoral prorgam in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy on Tuesday, December 18, to begin at 8 p.m. at NYU Kimmel Hall, 60 Washington Square South, Room 405.

This informal conversation features two members of the PENS (Psychological Ethics and National Security) Task Force, Jean Maria Arrigo and Nina Thomas, who will discuss their experiences participating in the task force, and where things have evolved since then. Jean Maria Arigo has been maligned by prominent APA officials following her description of procedural flaws in the PENS process. Her observations have supported previous reports of a complex relationship between APA and the Department of Defense/CIA, leading to the American Psychological Association remaining the one organization that has not banned the participation of its members in interrogation at military detention centers, as the AMA and the American Psychiatric Association have.

Nina Thomas has been at the forefront of these critical discussions.

We hope that this conversation, moderated by Neil Altman (author of the moratorium resolution, which would have banned psychologists’ participation in interrogation), will shed light on the difficult situation and the challenge to our professional ethics that the profession of psychology is now facing, and the overall complexity of the issues at hand. Many have raised questions on the Postdoc listserve with regard to this issue, and we are hoping that this joint venture between Section 9 and NYU Postdoc will help provide a forum to inform members of the greater community, as well as an opportunity to discuss all aspects of this issue with the leaders in this field. Organized by Section 9: Lu Steinberg & Steve Botticelli.

If you’d like to attend, please RSVP to Lu Steinberg at 212-757-0902.

The AMA continues to give the scandal of medical complicity in torture the silent treatment. The below resolution proposed came to the AMA house of Delegates this weeks. The AMA’s Committee on Constitution & Bylaws recommended that it not be adopted:

“Guidelines concerning physicians as members of Behavioral Science Consultant Teams, as well as their duties towards detained individuals, are already addressed by Department of Defense polices and federal law.”

The resolution did not even get a floor vote.

Steve Miles

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AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION HOUSE OF DELEGATES

Resolution: 2

(I-07)

Introduced by: Michigan Delegation

Subject: Physicians’ Duty to Report Torture

Referred to: Reference Committee on Amendments to Constitution and Bylaws

(Jane C.K. Fitch, MD, Chair)

Whereas, The Geneva Convention prohibits the torture of prisoners and requires the reporting of torture; and

Whereas, Adherence to the Geneva Convention is required by armed service regulations; and

Whereas, The codes of ethics of the World Health Organization and the AMA prohibit any physician involvement in torture; and

Whereas, The Michigan State Medical Society Committee on Bioethics believes that the vast majority of physicians serving in the US military serve with an extremely high degree of ethics and professionalism, such that any deviation from these standards of ethics, among a few medical personnel, would constitute a serious and deplorable breach of these high standards and unfairly tarnish the reputation of other military physicians; and

Whereas, Previous, known military inquiries into detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay have implicated some medical personnel but have not looked specifically at the role of medical personnel in these practices; and

Whereas, Those charged with teaching ethics to future physicians are handicapped in discussing the ethical standards expected of military physicians when they are unable to learn specific examples of both ethically exemplary and ethically questionable behavior under difficult wartime conditions; therefore be it

RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association ask the US Congress to conduct an investigation sufficient to assure that the US military is currently or has recently investigated the medical issues related to alleged detainee abuses, and the involvement or noninvolvement of medical personnel in such activities, especially that:

a. physicians are not being used as members of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs) advising detainee interrogation procedures and

b. all detained individuals are treated according to the same standards of care expected for US military personnel in the theater (Directive to Take Action); and be it further

RESOLVED, That our AMA ask the US Congress to investigate that bodies currently involved in training military physicians are addressing the ethical codes and principles pertinent to the prevention of abuse of detainees, including where appropriate real examples drawn from recent events in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. (Directive to Take Action)

Fiscal Note: Estimated cost of $9,823 to communicate with Congress through letters, meetings and other mechanisms.

Received: 09/26/07